August 2016

a late night post

I'm up too late right now.

It's about 1am as I write this. My 18 month old son will wake my wife and I in 5 to 6 hours, tops.

I spent most of the last 90 minutes or so reading over the last 12 months of my own blog. Before I started that, I sort of had a pebble in my shoe to write an essay or rant of some kind, but largely that feeling has drifted into whatever this post at this moment is.

I'm on my desktop, on my second screen, Twitter is still scrolling by. There are people in my feed on the west coast, so it's not really that late for them.

I really don't know what I want to say.

The Presidential race is completely uninteresting at this point. Of course I'll vote in 3 months, but it's not like I need to hear anything more to decide that.

There's an avalanche of new TV coming over the horizon with the new Fall season in a couple weeks. I've sort of gotten used to watching much much less TV the last 3 months, and I'm not sure I really want to increase that much.

I want to write something about Time. I want to write about all the things digital technology allows us to do now over the last 12 years or so, but I want to write how digital technology hasn't actually given us any more time to use all the things it's invented. But I don't think I have a particularly concise set of thoughts around the topic yet.

Companies need to pay people more, require people to work less, and people need to focus on the people in their circles more and focus less on bigger houses, more stuff, events and travel. I could go into why, but I don't think I have a firm enough grasp of the argument yet to override the ideas of happiness being bigger houses, more stuff, more events, and more travel that people have accepted as fact.

I reread a Bruce Sterling quote I posted on my blog earlier in the year, that was more or less, paraphrasing: that for people of a certain age, digital is new enough that we expect utopia from it, but people expected utopia from electrification once upon a time too, but that sounds silly now.

Utopia is too strong a word for what I would like to see, but I did expect things to come further, faster than they have, and there's a frustration with how short some major things have come up for society as a whole in the now 25 years or so I've been an adult.

Frustration isn't the right word. Disappointment, not quite right either. Dissatisfaction. Maybe that's the more appropriate word? Dunno, I think I'll go to bed now.

Just Wait

However, there's more of interest in the article about the transformation of the Democratic Party, in my opinion. Excerpt from the Taibbi article below:

The Democratic Party leaders have been fervent believers in the globalization religion since the late Eighties, when the braintrust at the Democratic Leadership Council made a calculated decision to transform the party from one that depended largely on unions for financial and logistical support to one that embraced corporate objectives, in particular free trade.

When he signed NAFTA into law in 1993, Bill Clinton laid out a utopian vision of how free trade would work. "We have the opportunity to remake the world," he said, boldly.

More trade agreements, he said, would create a world that would not only be more prosperous all over, but freer and more able to serve as a market for our exports.

"We will press for workers in all countries to secure rights that we now take for granted, to organize and earn a decent living," he said.

It was never articulated this way, exactly, but the basic promise of free trade was that the American middle class would experience temporary losses that over time would be balanced out by increased growth worldwide.

It was trickle-down economics, only repackaged with an international spin: After a long trip around the world, the wealth eventually gets back to you.

More...

Krugman claimed the maze of trade agreements is so entrenched by now that chaos would ensue from any attempt to undo them. A Trump might try, he said, but only as part of a "reign of destruction on many fronts."

Maybe that's true, and maybe it isn't.

But to deny that something needs to be done, and to ask American voters to keep having faith in this "we'll all see gains in the end" fairytale that so far has very conspicuously only delivered gains to a tiny group of very wealthy people in this country, will do nothing but drive more workers into the Trump tent.

The same day I read the above Taibbi article the below graphic also popped up in my Facebook feed. (I highlighted the Protestant part.)

I've seen the above a hundred times before, but after the Taibbi article I thought about the USA in the context of Protestant values which still to this day have an outsized effect on our culture and politics.

The concept of earning your "heavenly reward" if you will. Delaying happiness now, and deferring to a time after your death when you sit at Jesus' side in heaven.

Both parties, Democratic and Republican both want you to wait for "barriers to fall" or prosperity to "trickle down". Waiting is key. And American culture believes them.

People are paying more to educate themselves longer, waiting to get jobs longer, waiting to get married longer, waiting to have kids longer, waiting to buy houses longer, etc etc. People aren't living that much longer though. So to me, people are mostly just "waiting".

Progress is usually defined as moving forward. People aren't typically moving forward, when they are "waiting".

Sat, 25 May 2013 07:57:39 -0700
I?m not a fan of the new Flickr redesign. It?s not even that I don?t like the visual look of it.My primary beef is: without warning they completely changed the service for paying customers. I?ve payed for a Pro account for years under the assumption that paying for a service would provide a little more reliability. Flickr has shown that not to be the case, so I?m planning to use it far less frequently and probably far differently than the personal photo site of record I have been using it as. (I?m also not pleased with their likely upcoming attention/advertising model)

I was able to put all my photos into one Set and download the full size images using a free service called flickandshare.com, so I have everything safely out of the service now. Likely I will eventually set up my own simple photo gallery (and give these photos a new home) on my website at chris-karath.com. Hosting your own services and codes seem to be the most reliable method for content that you want around for years to come.

Photos that are here now, will probably continue to be here, Yahoo willing, into the future.

Since Flickr has shown itself to be of unpredictable stability, and it appears to be transforming into more a social network than a photo service, I?ll probably plan on treating it as such. If you subscribe to my account for the action figures, I?ll probably from time to time still post a picture or two of those here with links back to my own site where I?ll likely start posting more photos.

If you follow for my personal photos, following me on Twitter or my personal blog atchris-karath.com will probably be your best bet. --- Best wishes, Chris.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:02 -0700
I've never actually taken the full tour of the Museum. It was free today, so we went through it. It's nicely done for it's sort of thing.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:02 -0700
Those light poles to the shore should be dry land

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:01 -0700
Stairways to nowhere. Grand Rapids.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:00 -0700

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:48:59 -0700

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:48:58 -0700
Grand Rapids Art Museum. This display is by a new guy who just joined our team at work.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 06:49:01 -0700

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 12:17:53 -0700
Both these guys have contributed a lot to comics. I'm not implying anything with the choice of pose. I figure in classic comic parlance though, these two comic heroes would be obligated to fight before teaming up to defeat some great evil.

Recent Blog Comments

Thread: p1825 Post by Jolloway2013-02-23 12:23:49 Hi Cris and other people who view this sight,
I just started a blog site jolloway.co.uk and I wonderd if anyone can give me any tips on blogging. I am curently using a site called word press to host me blog. I start around about a month ago and I\'m really struggling with it and if you do reply I\'m only 11 and found this sight by a photo in google Images.
-Josh
P.S. I love the background XP

Thread: p1706 Post by Chris2012-10-27 13:29:47 Fortunately, I resisted the DC/Master Bundles as they were pretty much only bundled with basic figures I already had. Had they been bundled with more unique DC figures, I might have alot more Masters figures at this point ;)

Thread: p1706 Post by De2012-10-27 13:06:27 I almost bit on Masters of the Universe when they were being bundled with DC Universe figures in the two-packs. I\'ve also liked the blending of sci-fi and fantasy but a lad only has so much room :-)

Thread: p1674 Post by T. Bass2012-10-24 20:55:50 Hi Chris:
Like you, I bought and just received an ONDA V701. Mine took 32 days (!) to arrive from China (bought from gadgetdealer.com... avoid like plague), and the box was beat to hell, but it seems to work fine ....with one exception.
That said, I like the tablet thus far, but a couple of things aren\'t flying right. One, it was advertised as having Adobe Flash ver. 11.1, but instead, mine came with 10.2. Yours? Not sure this matters, as Flash is going the way of the dodo-bird as far as Android goes.
My only real complaint thus far, and that despite trying everything I could find online, I cannot get NetFlix to work. This was/is one of the main reasons I bought it, as they advertised that it \"works with NetFlix\". I don\'t know whether it\'s the tablet, or the app that is the problem, but nonetheless, no love from NetFlix at this point.
I don\'t know if you are subscribed to Netflix, but if you are, I sure would like to know if it works for you on your V701, and if so, how did you get it going, and what settings are you\'re using to make it work? Appreciate hearing from you.
Best,
T. Bass
Applegate, Oregon

Thread: p1557 Post by davy2012-08-24 17:58:58 i kind of agree with you, and i\'m sure bale had the best intentions but the whole media circus at times is disturbing.
but if to had to pick on whether bale should have visited or not i\'d rather he visit for the sole reason that if he made any of the survivors feel good,even if it was only for the briefest moments, then it was worth it.
the victims medical and emotonals needs should be put first and if bale\'s visit helped any of them emotionally then i\'m glad